The full title of the book is “The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It: On Social Position and How We Use it”. This is a fabulous read. Highly exciting and intensely argued by the author. I was very much persuaded by his theory that status games are a basic need. If denied of status in a sudden manner, we implode.

I have been wrestling with humiliation and envy these few weeks. Wrestling is a big word that brings up imagery of two giants hugging each other. My wrestling is more like a parrot shouting long paragraphs of curse words at inappropriate moments. Like when I am in the middle of a flux of instructions coming at me left and right. Or trying to learn my presentation. (“Stop it! Concentrate!”, I would admonish myself.) Humiliation and envy are also big words. My feeling is more like rage against my circumstance and wishing I was lying down somewhere else.

Reading this book it worked for me to figure out why I was having these feelings. Humiliation is just a louder volume of the kowtowing that we engage in at home, school or at work. It is a means of socialising to ensure alignment. Envy came from wanting to receive a high enough status to avoid having to kowtow. What totally blew away these feelings was my recognition that I didn’t actually want to be a high status person. All I wanted was to drift away and disengage.

The book was very well argued, thick with terrifying examples of how the lack of status creates killers and the role status plays in the world stage. As I read the book, it felt that the world he writes about are only filled with extroverts who desire to engage in the world they are in and have people know and react to their actions and decisions. As an introvert who drifts in and out of conversations, my world is quite small. I don’t aim to influence my friends and when I want to influence them, my influence is quite weak. I lack the desire to make someone do something. I know that after a while, I prefer to be by myself, doing my own thing.

挥一挥衣袖，不带走一片云彩